Background: Assessing severity of illness using available electronic medical record (EMR) data on admission and predicting inpatient mortality is very challenging. Lacking standardized practices around end of life issues, hospitalists use their clinical judgment in making these crucial decisions. Prolonged discussions may be needed in medically complex patients to direct an optimal plan of care […]

Background: Misalignment of goals of care at the End-of-Life exposes patients to risk and the health care system to considerable costs. A lack of end of life conversations can lead to unrealistic patient expectations, patient harm, and multiple hospital readmissions. This study aims to identify physician perspectives on the barriers to initiating end of life […]

Case Presentation: A 32‐year‐old man presented with 1 day of left‐sided upper abdominal pain. The pain radiated to the left shoulder and was associated with nausea and vomiting. Initially, he complained of pain with taking a deep breath, but those symptoms resolved by presentation. He denied fever, chills, night sweats, or a history of trauma. […]